Eleven days into Operation Epic Fury, the most honest thing anyone in Washington can say is this: the United States started a war without an endstate.
Here is the pattern business leaders need to understand.
The Iran war is not one crisis. It is five overlapping crises arriving simultaneously: a munitions sustainability problem, an energy market shock, a Hormuz chokepoint that gives Tehran leverage despite military losses, a humanitarian emergency in Lebanon that is escalating rapidly, and a multi-decade allied coalition fracturing along national-interest lines in real time. France is playing broker. Germany is warning against endless war. Canada has drawn a clean line. The coalition of the willing does not exist in this Middle East conflict.
The Strait of Hormuz dimension deserves direct attention. Iran does not need to win militarily to destabilize global commerce. It only needs to mine the strait, threaten shipping, and raise transit costs. The US reports it has destroyed 16 Iranian minelayers. That is not reassurance — it is confirmation that the threat is active and ongoing. The LNG tankers already rerouting from Europe to Asia are the market's honest assessment of the risk.
Trump is scheduled to visit Beijing starting on March 31. This diplomatic visit to the Middle Kingdom is the most consequential signal inside all of this noise. A presidential visit to China while actively engaged in the Middle East conflict tells you something essential: Washington is managing its great power relationships carefully and does not want a two-front strategic environment. That visit will reshape the trade, technology, and geopolitical operating environment for the rest of 2026. Every company with US-China exposure should be watching the agenda, the tone, and what does not get said.
Three concrete implications for executives reading this today.
First, energy costs are not a short-term problem. They are a structural repricing that will shadow your cost base into 2027. Model it explicitly. Saudi Aramco's CEO used the word "catastrophic" if the Iran war drags on. He does not use language carelessly.
Second, the expansion of executive power documented in the Washington Post this week is not temporary. The president has started a war and levied sweeping tariffs, marking a major expansion of executive power at the expense of the legislative branch. Congress has ceded war authority and tariff authority to the White House with minimal resistance. That means policy can move faster, with less predictability, and with fewer legislative circuit breakers than your government affairs team is probably modeling. Update the assumption.
Third, supply chain repositioning is no longer a planning exercise. Apple now makes about 25% of iPhones in India after its China pivot. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India in 2025, up from 36 million a year earlier, with India's share of the total increasing rapidly. The companies that moved early are building durable cost and resilience advantages. The window is open — but it is not unlimited.
The war in Iran will end eventually. However, the volatility of global commerce will not end. The conflict has accelerated: energy market instability, allied fragmentation, executive branch unilateralism, and the great-power realignment are evident in every headline this week.
Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.
-Marc
*****
Marc A. Ross is a geopolitical strategist and the founder of Caracal Global, a fractional Chief Geopolitical Officer service for Fortune 1000 companies and private equity firms. He publishes the Caracal Global Daily — what a Chief Geopolitical Officer monitors every morning. Subscribe at caracal.global/contact.
